Gabrovo is a city with a rich cultural history, a guardian of traditional crafts and folk art in Bulgaria, with singular humour tradition; that have successfully contributed to the city’s development through culture. The local community is particularly engaged to protect and promote crafts and folk art and recognizes its transversal potential for development, covering notably the fields of economy and education.

From 2 to 11 November, the two UNESCO Creative Cities of Music jointly organised a series of concerts to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the first World War. The concerts were held at the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Music Director of Hannover’s NDR Radiophilharmonie and Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Maestro Andrew Manze.

From 2 to 11 November, the two UNESCO Creative Cities of Music jointly organised a series of concerts to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the first World War. The concerts were held at the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Music Director of Hannover’s NDR Radiophilharmonie and Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Maestro Andrew Manze.

From 20 to 22 December, the Iranian UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art will be the host of a first international exhibition on creative industries, covering various fields of culture and creativity including heritage, visual arts and information media.

The Bulgarian Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art will organize the 17th edition of its International Fair of Traditional Crafts, to be held from 6 to 8 September 2019 at the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum (Etar).

Sydney, the Australian UNESCO Creative City of Film, held its third annual Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) event on 16 November.
The event featured special presentations from prominent content makers and curators including Emmy award-winner Lynette Wallworth, acclaimed writer and director Eliza McNitt, who made history at the Sundance Film Festival as the world’s first ever acquisition of a VR experience, and Raindance Film Festival’s Virtual Reality Curator, Mária Rakušanová.

Do you know what Kaunas and San Francisco have in common? Trolleybuses! Street art, too. The electric public transport has been circling around the city of Kaunas for more than 60 years now. Recently Kaunas Municipality signed a deal with a Polish company that will deliver, in collaboration with street artists, 85 brand new looks to trolleybuses by the autumn 2019.

On 19 and 20 November, the Turkish Creative City of Kütahya will be hosting the first International Ahmet Yakupoğlu City, Art and Design Symposium. The event will be interdisciplinary and will cover the fields of art, design, city, history, architecture, miniature and urban aesthetics. For its first edition, a focus will be put on the life and work of painter Ahmet Yakupoğlu and the identity of the city of Kütahya.

Until 10 December, Porto-Novo, Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art in Benin, invites the scientific community to submit contributions around the theme “Divinatory systems in Africa in a context of globalization: issues and perspectives”. The selected reflection papers will be presented at the Scientific Symposium of the third edition of the Porto-Novo International Festival to be held on 7 and 8 January 2019.